


A Trick of the Light

by ABookAndACoffee



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Compliant, Color AU, F/M, Heir of Fire-era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-11-25 23:32:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18172895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABookAndACoffee/pseuds/ABookAndACoffee
Summary: In a world where everyone sees black and white until they meet their soulmate, Celaena Sardothien encounters Rowan Whitethorn in Varese. In the blink of an eye, she sees the world in a new light.





	1. Chapter 1

Celaena had been watching the movement and bustle of Varese for weeks. Scouting, she told herself. Learning the patterns of the guards, Galan Ashryver’s habits, who was allowed in the palace and why, routes of entry as well as escape. The more she could tell the King of Adarlan about her victorious assassination, the better. He’d likely been inside the palace as a guest in more peaceful days, and her ruse of helping her targets escape could only go on for so long. She was in a holding pattern that had nearly reached the end of its run.

Truth be told, Celaena just didn’t want to be bothered, either with killing anyone or hiding the fact that she hadn’t. Caring was the last thing she could be asked to do. Not with Nehemia gone and Chaol behind her. 

Reaching for a bottle of the sour, vinegary wine that was surely what merchants sold those who couldn’t afford to complain, Celaena drank the dregs. She grimaced and let the empty bottle fall to the tiles at her side with a clink. Her rooftop view was advantageous yes, but it was also hot, and bright, the only protection it offered being the near-impossibility of anyone else getting up there. 

The wine did nothing to slake her thirst, which she knew would be better served by water. But that would require getting down from her perch, and talking to more people.

Celaena blinked against the bright, grey, cloudless sky. The sun, she’d heard, was a brilliant yellow, though how anyone knew was impossible to tell, given how brightly it shone. Grass was green and the buildings around her, she supposed, were various shades of brown. The sky was apparently blue, though varying shades, depending on where one was in the world. There were dark splotches on her clothing at the armpits, caused by sweat she supposed, though she didn’t know how it might change what she’d been told was a pale tan fabric. 

She had heard all of these facts, but never experienced them herself. Celaena Sardothien assumed that she would be looking at the same shades of grey until she left the world. 

In addition to the absolute truth of her parents’ happiness with one another, Celaena had known from a young age that her parents saw in color. To them, the world was a dizzying array of hues that only those privileged to have met their soulmate could experience. 

And the idea of finding her own soulmate? She had given up on that long ago. 

People rarely spoke about color in public; it was deemed insensitive to those who hadn’t found their mate. Moreover, being able to describe color was nearly useless in a world where most people saw only in shades of grey. It was a privilege even the richest, kindest, proudest of kings were unable to buy themselves, let alone young, parentless women who had blood on their hands. 

Evalin never hesitated to tell Celaena what color her dress was, to describe the color of their turquoise eyes, but it was never enough. Celaena wanted to meet her soulmate, if only so she could fully understand the world around her. So she started by reading books in the vast libraries of Terrasen. 

Eventually, Celaena’s quest caused some important scrolls to go up in flames at her frustration. The stories that she devoured could never be a proper substitute, she thought, for an experience that was gifted to those already fortunate. So Celaena had done the next best thing, though unintentionally. She’d destroyed them.

The repercussions of that burst of anger had been more far-reaching than she’d understood at the time, and she never dwelled on them.

Up on that roof, Celaena slumped onto her back with a sigh. She likely stunk of sweat and dirt, having refused to find regular lodgings. Her palate was nearly dead from a steady diet of teggya, though her grumbling stomach reminded her that she would need to return to the street at some point. 

Celaena looked up into the sky, her forearm across her forehead in an attempt to shield her eyesight from the sun. A hawk had been circling overhead for hours. Perhaps it saw her as prey. Celaena couldn’t say she minded. While she was fairly certain that no one could take her, she was so damn tired of being beaten in other ways. 

Perhaps seeing the world in black and white and grey was enough. It hadn’t hindered her ability to do her job, after all. She’d never seen the deep red of a wound inflicted by her blades, just as she hadn’t been able to tell that it was blood that covered Nehemia, that coated her nightgown and her parents while she lay in their bed, trying to rouse them from sleep. And truth be told, Celaena was glad that there was something of a veil covering her memories of those discoveries. 

She saw their bodies in her dreams without the benefit of color, and that was more than enough to keep her up at night. 

Celaena stood, steadying herself as her head swam. Her light-headedness was likely the result of the wine, or the heat, the lack of sleep, or perhaps it had been too long since she’d had a decent piece of cake. Whatever the cause, she couldn’t ignore her 

While she may have left Adarlan under the premise of working for the King, her ulterior motive lingered. She needed to find Maeve, her aunt, or whatever one called their distant, ancient relative. 

Dropping from the second-story roof of the building onto the tin roof of a merchant’s booth, Celaena swung her way down to the street. She still moved with ease, her feet meeting the stone pathway silently, though she hadn’t been training in the strictest sense. If Arobynn knew how she’d been behaving the past weeks he likely would have put her through drills until her feet blistered and she vomited from the effort, and then tell her that it was all for her own good. The King of Adarlan wouldn’t have been pleased to know what she’d been spending her purse money on, but then… neither of them were there, were they?

Celaena reached into her pocket, fingering the ring she kept there. When Chaol gave it to her he’d said it was amethyst, which meant, according to those who knew, that it was purple. Purple was the color that royalty wore, the color of flowers, of the sky at certain times of day. It was also the color of split lips and bruises, of poison made from foxgloves. 

She couldn’t bring herself to sell it for drinking money, nor could she put it back on her finger. 

Patting her pocket closed, the ring still held within, Celaena squinted her eyes to search for the nearest teggya merchant. Instead, what she found was that the alley had become deserted. The stalls were shut, patrons scattered to other streets, even the birds ceased to perch on the rooftops. Those who were too drunk with wine or hunger to understand what had happened around them merely sat on the sidewalk, blinking away their disbelief that the world around them had changed so drastically, and for a reason no one could discern.

Celaena disliked silence, an absence where human voices should have been. It never presaged anything good.

At the far end of the alley, the hawk that had been circling her had set itself on the edge of a tin roof. That shouldn’t have explained the changed atmosphere, but Celaena watched it cautiously as it eyed her. It moved oddly, staying in one place, its wings tucked securely to its sides instead of preparing for flight away from her. Celaena stepped forward slowly and her hand drifted to where she kept a stiletto tucked into her boot.

Before she reached its perch, there was a flash of light. The hawk turned into a man, his legs dangling from the edge of the stall roof. He was threatening in a primal way so that everyone in the alley shrunk from him. When he jumped onto the street below, he revealed his height. He would likely tower over her when she reached him, and the tattoos that traced a path from his temple and down the side of his face did nothing to assuage her apprehension. Celaena felt her stomach turn, but strode forward. 

Their eyes locked, and she stopped in her tracks.

Celeana blinked. The world had become unbearably bright, but in a way she couldn’t describe. The sun still shone down on her, beating relentlessly, but where she had only seen grey before, the world had taken on nuance. With every blink, the world metamorphosed into shades she instinctively wanted to assign names. Looking down at her hands, she wondered if they were crusted in brown dirt, if her dark boots were in fact a deep, rich mahogany, if the veins beneath her skin was a veil blue. She wondered what would happen if she reached for her stiletto and spilt her own blood. Would she see that red? 

The previously-crowded alleyway had cleared out as soon as the hawk had changed into a man. Celaena searched for someone to talk to, anyone who could explain what it was that she saw. Celaena Sardothien could finally see color. She wanted to compare what she found with someone, anyone who could explain what this meant. Wracking her brain, she thought about her friends, her former and current employers. None of them had ever hinted at understanding what color was. She was, as usual, alone. 

And then a new realization hit her. This transformation had happened when she looked at the white-haired man before her, which meant that not only was she able to see colors, he was her soulmate. Her soulmate, the one she was supposed to spend her life with, to trust above all others, to laugh with and care for. 

But this man? No. He’d been sent by Maeve, and Celaena knew she couldn’t trust him. No matter what her eyes were trying to tell her now.

The man - fae, to be precise - had stopped in the alley and crossed his arms. If he’d experienced anything like she had, he didn’t let on. He was a wall of muscle and barely-contained aggression, tattoos snaking up his face and pale hair that she could now say - now that she had the ability to see color - she laughed to see was the same shining silver as it had been before, his tattoos the same deep black. And his eyes - Celaena wanted to know the name to call them, how she could possibly find a word that would describe a color that reminded her of home. 

“Hello, Aelin.”

She flinched at the name, at his voice. “My name is Celaena Sardothien,” she answered. “What’s yours?” 

“Rowan. Whitethorn.” He paused, as if giving her time to react. After she failed to give him the proper respect, he rolled his eyes. “You’re coming with me. To see Maeve.” He uncrossed his arms and hooked his thumbs on his belt loops, a sure sign that he didn’t consider her a threat enough to remain defensive. 

“You know my aunt?” Celaena wasn’t quite so ready to let her guard down. Not with her heart pounding and her mind racing through every memory she had with Sam and Chaol. 

Chaol had never asked her if she saw color, and she had never brought up the question with him. It seemed neither of them had the time, what with the wyrdmarks, Celaena’s attempts to pacify the King of Adarlan, and Chaol’s insistence that the world outside his door was precisely the same way it had been when he was a child, despite evidence to the contrary. 

Celaena knew that Chaol hadn’t been her soulmate. Not when she continued to see the world in black and white. It hadn’t mattered at the time, until it did. Until she felt foolish for trusting someone she knew wasn’t her soulmate, and he had let Nehemia die.

Celaena flinched. She pushed thoughts of Sam to the back of her mind, where she stored all the memories she didn’t have time to mourn.

“Yes, I know her. And she sent me to bring you to her. You do want to speak with her, don’t you?” Rowan raised an eyebrow. 

“Yes,” Celaena said shortly. She didn’t need to tell Rowan anything about why she needed to speak with Maeve. The fewer people who knew about the wyrdkeys, the better. And perhaps it was fluke. Maybe, when she woke in the morning everything would be black and white again. “And don’t call me that.”

“Let’s go,” Rowan barked. He walked away without checking to see if she followed, and Celaena wondered again if he’d begun seeing color, if he cared at all if she refused to follow.

In any case, it didn’t matter. She had more important business to deal with than trying to figure out if she was really the soulmate of a gigantic, grumpy fae. 

Celaena hesitated, then stepped forward. Each time she blinked, she wondered if she would stop seeing color.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rowan's POV of the first time he and Aelin meet.

Rowan circled the girl for days, waiting to see if she would drink herself to death before he had to go through the task of speaking to her and bringing her to Maeve. She - Aelin - seemed to have an iron metabolism that was likely due to her fae heritage. But Rowan doubted that she knew enough about having fae blood to have made her drinking anything other than a sign of her reckless disregard for her own well-being.

No, it was more likely that the girl was attempting to drink herself senseless out of some instinct born of spoiled princesses who didn’t get what they wanted, and Rowan wasn’t going to get in the way of that.

He’d be lying if he didn’t suspect that she’d noticed him circling, which was a point in her favor. Then again, Rowan had heard from Maeve that Aelin was an assassin, though he wondered if working with Arobynn was more to cure the boredom of a pampered lifestyle than any genuine talent. She’d taken up the profession after the loss of her family, but that was hardly a new story. Everyone lost their family at some point. Rowan knew that just as well as anyone else. 

It seemed to be mortals who were most surprised by sudden changes wrought with time. It was mortals who were the most surprised to learn of their mortality, and they bred in Rowan a sort of contempt, that anyone would dare mourn the loss of a few dozen good years, when he had been promised lifetimes.

In his hawk form, Rowan’s eyesight was even sharper, though just as grey, as in his fae form. He could make out the dirt creased in Aelin’s neck and caked underneath her fingernails from where she hadn’t washed, the sour frown on her face that was as much from unhappiness as it was the brightness of the sun. Her clothing was stained by sweat, her boots worn by use. Strands of blond hair came loose from the long braid she had slung over her back. He could hear the clink of a few coins in her purse against the ring that she took out and replaced each night. None of those were details that needed color to enrich them. Rowan could track her just as easily now as he could before.

And once upon a time, Rowan had seen in color. Now the world had returned to shades of grey, and he didn’t mind one damn bit. 

Rowan surveyed the rooftops, the alleys that insisted on remaining shadowed, even in the full light of day. He wouldn’t be surprised if Maeve had sent someone to tail him, to report when his task was complete or whether he spent too much time in taverns. Of course he never did. None of them did, Lorcan from his misguided idea that if he tried hard enough Maeve might love him back, Fenrys being on a short leash with Connall at the other end, and Gavriel with his fear of getting too close to another mortal woman. And Rowan? Rowan just didn’t care. The world hadn’t held pleasure for him in years. Not since Lyria had left it cold and grey. 

Rowan had never heard that when one’s soulmate died, they lost their ability to see color. In all the tales, and the one time he had brought himself to quietly ask Emrys after everyone had left the fire in the kitchen, he’d only ever heard that when the color came, it came to stay. Color was a gift, it made the world brighter and richer, and while soulmates’ lives were not tied to one another, it wasn’t a gift that the gods would take back once it was bestowed. Or so he was told.

Rowan’s experience with Maeve, even before he had pledged himself to her, had been enough to know that gods were capricious beings who didn’t deserve any sort of worship. One of them had likely taken away his ability to see color because he had allowed his ego to override his duty to protect his wife. Who would deserve to know and love their soulmate, after making the decisions like those he had made? It was a punishment, he supposed, for having left her. Perhaps Maeve had taken the ability from him, to remind him that his first duty was to her. 

The only other option, the only other reason he might have lost his ability to see the shades and hues of the world, was unthinkable. He refused to ask anyone if it was a possibility. Lyria had been his soulmate. He was sure of it, and he didn’t need colors or gods to tell him that he had loved her.

After Rowan had pledged servitude to Maeve, he didn’t care what it would entail. Let her whip and wreck him. He would do whatever she wanted, so long as she kept his mind and hands busy. He could no longer see the warm brown of Lyria’s eyes, or the pale blue of her favorite dress, or the golden color of her skin after a summer in the sun. So what did it matter if he could no longer see the deep red of his blood spilt on the cobblestones of Maeve’s courtyard after a whipping? He knew well enough the colors of love and warmth and pain and loss. He didn’t need the reminders. 

Rowan suspected that he had been left to his own devices on this mission, after a scan of the surrounding area revealed no one following him. And yet, being miles or leagues away from Maeve was not enough to soften the impact of her influence. She would know if he failed, if he dallied, and she would punish him. The punishment might not come immediately, but that was half her fun. Hell, she might even forgive him, so long as it was on her terms. 

But for this girl? No, Rowan didn’t think Aelin would be worth dealing with Maeve’s moods.

No, what Rowan would rather do, the small act of rebellion he had found himself more and more likely to engage in while journeying to and from Doranelle, was to take his time. He came up with excuses, and didn’t care if Maeve could see through his lies. Rowan would look at a flower and try to remember its exact shade. In a jeweler’s stall he would pause and wonder which of the stones was the sapphire Lyria preferred. They could tell him, but then, he never asked.

And then Rowan would leave sentiment behind, and go about his task. 

Aelin was still perched on a rooftop, an impossible task for someone without her preternatural gifts. Rowan could sense her fatigue, one that went deeper than her bones, though he supposed she drew from a shallow well. The girl kept glancing towards the castle where the Ashryver’s lived, and each time she did her mouth became slightly pinched. It didn’t take much guesswork to figure out one of her reasons for showing up on these shores, though for an assassin, she seemed to view her task with distaste. 

Rowan couldn’t decide if that was another point in her favor, or if he should hold it against her. They both had their masters, and while Rowan had long ago decided that Maeve’s will was his, he felt a twisting in his gut when she asked him to go out on his more unsavory missions. Perhaps Aelin having a will of her own wasn’t such a bad thing. As long as she didn’t get in his way.

Rowan circled once more, swooping from one end of the street to the other to count the number of humans and fae who littered the area. The smell of sour wine and burnt teggya hit his nostrils, combined with the stench of sweating, unwashed bodies. If only he could shed his sense of smell so easily as he had lost the ability to see colors, he might be able to stand being around mortals. Luckily his presence tended to make them scatter, and they did so now, emptying out the alley that Aelin was headed towards.

Aelin swung from the edge of the tiled roof of the inn to the tin roof of a merchant’s stall, then down to the ground, disturbing a small cloud of dust as her boots hit the alley. Rowan perched himself on the edge of another merchant’s roof, his talons wrapping around its edge, and their eyes locked. 

Yes, perhaps this woman wasn’t quite as clueless as he had assumed. Something in her recognized that he wasn’t merely a hawk, just as he would have known without being told that she was something more than human. 

Rowan leapt from the roof, felt a click and a shove in his core, and shifted to his fae form. He had been told it was accompanied with a small flash of light, and so he wasn’t surprised when Aelin blinked at him. He took a breath and strode into the street before Aelin. He was pleased to see that she didn’t flinch away from him, but she blinked again as if she were clearing her vision. Likely the wine had gone to her head. She didn’t smell quite as badly as he thought she would, but this close he learned that her eyes were a startling turquoise, that her clothing was a dingy tan, and her worn but well-made boots were a rich brown. 

Without breaking his stride, Rowan blinked to realize that he was seeing in color again. His heart leapt and his mind went to Lyria, her hands dyed by the verdant flowers by which she made her living, the rosy color of her cheeks when he swept her from her feet, the gold of her wedding ring. He had dreamt of those moments for years, and yet even in those dreams he had been denied the colors he craved. 

But Lyria was gone, and the only person before him was this woman who smelled of wine and regret, whose eyes were cold with calculation. If this was a gift, then the gods could take it back. 

Angered, Rowan stepped forward. “Hello, Aelin.”

The assassin flinched, finally. It seemed that his hulking presence, his fae lineage, and his ability to transform had not been enough to intimidate, but her true name struck a nerve.

“My name is Celaena Sardothien,” she shot back. “What’s yours?” She shifted from one foot to the other, testing her balance. So, she was going to play at being someone else even now. It hardly mattered to Rowan, though he couldn’t ignore the brilliant turquoise of her eyes that he now saw contained a ring of gold, the long blond hair that was so much lighter than Lyria’s had been. 

“Rowan. Whitethorn.” He paused a moment to let his name sink in, but it, much like his appearance, did nothing to stir her. “You’re coming with me.”

The world was far too bright, contained far too many colors to be a world in which Lyria no longer existed. Unless… 

Aelin waited before responding. She must have been testing him, and hadn’t realized how foolish that was. “You know my aunt?”

Her aunt. Yes, Rowan supposed, she was related to Maeve in some distant way, and to Mora, and to Mab. 

“Yes, I know her. She sent me to bring you to her. You want to speak with her, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go,” Rowan said, spinning on his heels. Creatures shrunk further into the shadows as he passed, and Rowan wanted to follow them. But not yet. Now, he had to find Maeve, and he had to make her answer why he had begun seeing in color again after setting his eyes on the Ashryver girl. 

But before they could get to Maeve, Rowan would have to bring Aelin through green fields and under blue skies, and he didn’t want to have to look at any of it.


End file.
